Week at a Glance

From Kerry Morton…Math Book Club! – Are you interested in earning 2 graduate credits while you learn more about Strengths-Based Teaching and Learning?  Well, this is the book club for you!  It will start January 14th and end June 10th. Here is the syllabus. We will have two meetings over WebEx. The remainder of the assignments will be asynchronous in Canvas. Watch for more information about how to register on Performance Matters next week.

Limited In Person Instruction (LIPI) is going well. We are continuing to focus on serving students who are not able to or are not participating in CDL and have been adding students as needs arise and staff are available. If you have a student in your classroom that is not able to participate in CDL and you would like to host them in your classroom from 8:30-10:30 please let Lybe or I know.

Thank you for your time communicating the importance of Lexia to students and families. This is our main source of literacy data for this year and is an incredibly useful tool for providing feedback to move our students’ reading progress forward. Below are some ideas from TLC for encouraging Lexia usage:

Ideas for encouraging Lexia usage:

• Instead of focusing on time on Lexia, focus on units completed. The general rule is that students complete about 2 units for every 10 minutes. So a goal might be: My goal is to complete 4 units each day.
• Acknowledging students who have met usage in your live meetings
• Put students in breakout rooms to do Lexia and drop into each group to give feedback
• If you meet usage you can choose one assignment to not do
• Certificates 

Below are the favorite Disney characters of our staff. Some received multiple votes and the number of additional votes is listed in parentheses.

• Goofy (4)
• Minnie Mouse (3)
• Mulan  (2)
• Mickey Mouse (2)
• Tigger (2)
• Beauty and the Beast
• The Genie
• Cinderella
• Buzz Lightyear
• Ariel
• Olaf    
• Dory from Finding Nemo
• Dr. Stephen Strange
• Merida
• O’Malley the Alley Cat from The Aristocats
• Moana

Here again is the link to the emergency bus evacuation procedures video. Thank you for watching with your students by December 17th.

An update should be coming soon from the District team that has been working on the report card version we will send home in February. I will keep you posted as I receive more information.

The December PTO meeting is at 4:00 on Thursday.  I am planning again to share grade level reports at the meeting. Please send me brief details by Thursday at 9:00 of what students at your grade level are learning and I will share for all with the PTO. 

It has been a wild enrollment ride this school year and we are anticipating the seas to continue to be choppy! Thank you for your help encouraging families to contact Amber if they are planning to make any changes to their enrollment status (moving to Bend Online, moving out of state, etc). This helps us to keep Synergy up to date and provide consistent answers to the wide variety of school enrollment questions that have surfaced during the pandemic.

Our December Staff Meeting will be on Wednesday, December 2nd at 1:30 via Webex in my room.

You rock! Below are the artists and bands you would most like to see perform together at Les Schwab Amphitheater.

The Safety Team met on Tuesday, here are the notes

Some technological gremlins impacted the PBIS Responsibility Video we had planned to send out last week. With only one week until Thanksgiving break we have decided to wait to send it until the first week of December and are still planning to share it with families via the weekly family email.

Wednesday is our Lexia Core 5 SIW activity. For this training we will be meeting in two groups, K-3rd and 4th-5th beginning at 1:30. The training will last 60-90 minutes. We will send out the Webex links for the trainings early next week.

Who from history would the Lava Ridge Staff like to have dinner with?

Thank you for letting me know in advance if you are not able to lead the 2+ hour teacher-facilitated learning blocks or other regular instructional groups you may have on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. This is helpful in fielding questions from families and others connected with our classes.

A reminder of our Lexia live online professional learning on Nov.18, from 1:30pm-3:00pm. We will access this via Webex and will send out a link early the week of the training.

Teachers/staff getting charged overages on their home internet? Bend Broadband’s parent company, TDS is willing to credit back any overage charges for BLP teachers as long as they email TDS from their school email address. Any teacher that’s been impacted should send an email to [email protected], from their school email address with their name and account number, requesting credit for their “data usage allowance overage charge.

From Julie Walker….Hybrid Planning and Support We know hybrid is heavy on teachers’ minds as we continue on this uncharted journey.  We don’t have all of the answers for what it will look like but would love to support you as you start to think about what instruction might look like.  We are offering some drop-in sessions next week.  Please join us. The schedule will be:

-Monday, 11/9 @ 1:15 PM: How Do I Plan Instruction for Hybrid: Questions & Answers Join us in Lindsley’s Webex room (bls.webex.com/meet/lindsley.gehrig )

-Tuesday, 11/10 @ 1:15 PM: How Do I Plan Instruction for Hybrid: Questions & Answers Join us in Lindsley’s Webex room (bls.webex.com/meet/lindsley.gehrig)

-Thursday, 11/12 @ 1:15 PM: Tech and Math Join us in Kerry’s Webex room (bls.webex.com/meet/kerry.morton)

From Nutrition Services – We will be offering meals over the holiday breaks. They will include breakfast, lunch and supper grab ‘n’ go from 12pm-1pm on the following days:

USDA has extended the waivers for summer meals until June 30, 2021. The waivers will allow us to serve breakfast and lunch at no cost to kids 18 and under for the rest of the 20-21 school year

Here is a list of books recommended by our staff for others. Enjoy!

At the Staff Meeting on Wednesday we discussed the work the ICCL Team is doing to filter through the information that is in the weekly update from Julie Walker. This can be located in the Where to Find things Doc Check out the grade level tabs too! 🙂

Save the date! Our first SIW of the year will be a Lexia Training via Webex on Wednesday, November 18 at 1:30. More details to follow.

A note from Amy Tarnow: Teachers of students in grades K-8 have the ability to individually approve YouTube videos. This allows teachers and students to more predictably access educational content that might live outside of our strict filter setting. With this power comes a great responsibility. The approving teacher’s name will be associated with videos that they approve, and these videos will be visible for all students in Kindergarten through 8th Grade, not just that teacher’s students. For that reason, teachers need to be careful NOT to approve a video unless it directly supports instruction and learning goals for students.  More information and directions on how to use this feature are contained in this blog post from our Instructional Technology Team

Does your team have a plan for when one of your team members is sick and not able to teach during CDL? Might you split up students and have them join another class for the day? While there is no requirement to do this, it does help out a teammate and continues learning for the students in that class. If your team (or individuals on the team) do this and the sick team member is not able to teach, please let me know so you can be time-sheeted. Here again is a copy of the email from HR about substitute guidelines for CDL. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Please continue to wait to coordinate any outside of school gatherings with students (play dates, meet at the park events) until we are given the green light to organize such events from Paul Dean or Lora Nordquist. Thank you!

Over the last several weeks the phone calls to the help desk for families (ext 8700) have reduced to 15 or less per day. Beginning November 2 the Tech Department is returning to the typical model where these calls go directly to the schools for support.  The phone number, 355-8700 will still be used by families and will forward for Lava Ridge families to Sarah Dieker in the Media Center.

Have you checked out myOn? myON is a student-centered tool that gives K-5 students access to more than 6,000 enhanced digital books. It provides a personalized reading experience and engages students of all reading abilities. Unlike programs such as Epic, myON will give students access 24 hours a day! Students will be able to find fiction and nonfiction books, and even kid-friendly news articles. myON also provides lots of options in Spanish! Here is a link for more information about myOn.

Upcoming myOn dates:

The district is moving to a new software system for Translation and Interpretation requests. I am told this new system will support improvements in efficiency and quality of our multilingual communication services, which should help our family engagement efforts. A handful of schools in the district have piloted the software for a year, and report that it is intuitive and easy to navigate. We are required to transition to this new software prior to January 2021. The training is designed to be asynchronous and takes less than 30 minutes. The training is available here (see document #5). Our goal is for all staff to complete this by December 1st.

From Nutrition Services…With so many schools having meal offerings each day, there has been interest by those working in the schools to be able to access the meals as well.  The cost for the meals is $4 for supper, $4 for lunch and $3 for breakfast. You can pay each time by cash or check for the meals you would like. We do not have change, so the exact amount would be necessary.  If you would like to use your meal account, we can offer that option.  If you need to add money to that account, you will need to pay online through BLPay https://blpay.bend.k12.or.us

As you may have seen, work began this week on the natural area outside the main entrance. Grass will be planted here as it is easier for the Outside Maintenance Department to maintain and also provides a place for students to wait for rides.

Some quick updates:

Thank you for all of your hard work this week. You are making a difference in the lives of our students and I am honored to work alongside you.

In recent weeks there have been Bend-La Pine teachers that have had Webex meetings disrupted by students not in their class. Changes are coming to the way in which students log on to Webex to prevent this from happening in the future. Keep an eye out for an email from Tech Services with more details in the coming days. These are some of the planned adjustments:

Here is a page on the district website you may wish to bookmark. It has a simple and clear metric chart that highlights the individual metrics per week, as well as the potential first day we could return in a Hybrid format.

Limited In Person Instruction (LIPI) is off to a great start. We are continuing to focus on serving students who are not able to or are not participating in CDL. If you have a student in your classroom that is not able to participate in CDL and you would like to host them in your classroom from 8:30-10:30 please let Lybe or I know.

Safety Team notes from Tuesday can be located here.

Elementary Schools have been working with Paul Dean on options for Halloween costume events for students and families. We have been given guidelines to follow for these events and are planning to have two optional Halloweenish style of events you may wish to consider.

1. Schedule a material pick-up on either Thursday, October 29th or before 12:00 on October 30th and encourage students to wear their costumes. Once on campus (either the front or back lot) they can stroll through the Lava Ridge Costume Walk and at the end pick-up a piece of candy and their learning materials.
2. Join the Lava Ridge Costume Walk on Friday, October 30th between 12:30-3:00. While the specific details of this are still coming together, in general, classes will be scheduled for a 30 minute window, and students will be invited to come to school and go through the Lava Ridge Costume Walk and receive a piece of candy.

Please email Lybe and I if you are interested in either of these events.

Update: The conference calendar changes were communicated to all Bend-La Pine families last week in a weekly update from the school district. We will be reminding families about this next week in our weekly communication home.

Each fall, SELCO awards grants of up to $1,000 to K-12 educators at schools throughout Oregon. If you have a creative classroom idea they would love to hear about it. This year’s application period is now open and runs through October 31. Visit selco.org/SPARK to learn more.

On Monday we will have a small number of students begin Limited In Person Instruction (LIPI). This group will be on campus from 8:30-10:30 daily.

New Webex features: If you didn’t hear, some new WebEx features were recently released. The biggest feature was the addition of breakout rooms – this is a great way to engage students in classroom discussions. Lots of resources and tutorials about WebEx can be found via this link.

On Thursday, Paul Dean (COVID Safety Coordinator) and Sarah Barclay (BEA) joined Nurse Michelle, Mike, Lybe and I for a building walk-through and discussion of our return to school safety plan. The discussion focused on the systems we will have in place for when students return in the hybrid model, Mike’s creative hallway traffic flow design, and disinfection/air cleaning protocols.

Bend-La Pine Schools has developed this flowchart to assist in helping with different COVID related questions and concerns.

Thank you for always wearing your face mask unless you are working alone in your area/classroom. Please let me know if you have any questions about the new Bend-La Pine Restrictions on Face Shield Use guidelines. Here again are the exceptions and the information from the CDC website the Bend-La Pine Safety Team used in this decision.

The next Safety Team meeting is on Tuesday at 1:00 in the Media Center.

Keep up the great work! I spoke with a parent this week that shared her appreciation for the small groups her child has each day. She expressed her thanks not only for the instruction but more importantly she said, the social and emotional value it has for her child being able to interact each day with her teacher and a small group of her classmates. I know you are working hard with your daily small groups and I want you to know your work is appreciated. Thank you.

Bend-La Pine Schools recently posted a doc entitled, Ready Set Learn that contains lots of information and guidance for staff and families related to COVID. This content was referenced during the Town Hall on Monday and also at our Staff Meeting. Please take some time to read this document.

Below are the Comprehensive Distance Learning docs by grade-level bands:

K-1 Schedule

2-3 Schedule

4-5 Schedule

Minutes from the Safety Team Meeting are here.

Our first fire drill of the year went, well, fair. This was our first time using the information from the check-in/check-out (QR Code) system to determine which adults were in the building at the time of the drill and needed to be accounted for. Using this information we had 5 adults we could not locate at the end of the drill. If this had been a real emergency our next step would have been to try and locate each of these people. We do drills to practice and learn what we need to grow and our biggest takeaway from this drill is the importance of completing the COVID google doc each arrival and departure from Lava Ridge. Thank you!

On Monday we will begin Limited In Person Instruction (LIPI) for a small group of students. On October 12th, we are planning to expand this group to include even more Lions that are not attending or able to participate in CDL (some due to a disability). These groups will be on campus from 8:30-10:30 and we will add additional students as we can. I really appreciate the hard work of the team that has worked to launch LIPI at Lava Ridge. With very limited personnel available to support these students, this team is considering every detail from who greets students when they get off the bus, safety protocols, supervision, and of course the instructional planning. Thank you.